


it is before that, and colder

by seventhstar



Series: a covenant with a bright blazing star [5]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alpha Katsuki Yuuri, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - Regency, Angst, Drama, M/M, Marriage of Convenience, Omega Victor Nikiforov, Storms, Thunder and Lightning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-07
Updated: 2017-12-07
Packaged: 2019-02-11 22:32:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12945429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seventhstar/pseuds/seventhstar
Summary: All the blood drains from Yuuri’s face. For a moment, he hears only the thunder of his own heart in his ears; Viktor, out in that storm, with no idea of the breadth of the grounds, no doubt hungry—it might be days before he was found, in this weather, long wet days, and if he were caught in the open by some vicious vagrants or highwaymen, who knew what might befall him?[part of an ongoing series of fics, telling the story of poor and scandalous trademan's son viktor nikiforov's marriage of convenience to the reclusive lord katsuki]





	it is before that, and colder

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, folks, here is your MEGA UPDATE: not one, not two, but four more fics in these series are being posted today! so if you're not subscribed, here's your alert: keep reading! (there's more porn if that helps)
> 
> Reminder that the fics in this series are not being written in chronological order, so if you're reading them as I have them listed in the series, you might find yourself rereading. Check the date posted to see which ones are new!

“Betsy,” Minako says to the maid. She jumps, understandably; she is new, and Minako terrifying. “Please inform Lord Viktor that dinner is served.”

Minako is going back to her townhouse in three days. Yuuri will miss her, but he is relieved that there will be one fewer witness to the shambles of Yuuri’s marriage.

“Yes, your ladyship,” Betsy squeaks. She curtsies deeply and flees the dining room, while their footman silently begins laying out the dishes. Only one course, and a small one at that, is being served; despite being fifty thousand pounds richer, Yuuri has no desire to discard the habits of economy he has learned. Some people, he thinks, Viktor’s face clear in his mind, may look down on the Katsukis, for only keeping a few servants and allowing magic to attend to the rest. But Yuuri will not destroy his family’s legacy by squandering his money in vulgar shows of wealth, as his peers do.

(That his bitter thoughts distract him from the fact that Viktor has not eaten dinner, either with the family or on a tray, since their argument, Yuuri is well aware of. In truth, Yuuri has no real desire to eat with him. But this morning, a delivery of lightning lamps was made to the house at a cost that is frankly obscene, and Viktor’s signature was on the merchant’s letter, so this confrontation cannot be avoided.)

They wait ten long minutes for the return of the maid.

“Er, your ladyship,” Betsy says. She’s trembling. “Begging your pardon, but Lord Nikiforov isn’t in his rooms. And I asked Sarah, and Cook, and John, and none of them say he’s been seen in the house since he went out this morning.”

“What?” Yuuri’s eyes move involuntarily to the windows; outside the glass, he can see lightning flashing in the distance. A storm is raging; heavy droplets of rain pound the walls. “He—he went out?”

Yuuri was prepared to argue with a petulant Viktor who might refuse to leave his rooms (no, he was not) but not for this.

Minako sees him panicking and asserts herself. “When did he go out?”

“Well, your ladyship, he came down nine o’clock and wanted something to take with him on a walk—only Cook didn’t have anything—”

“There was a full basket of rolls when I arrived at nine-fifteen,” Minako interjects. “But continue—Lord Nikiforov went out, hungry, for a walk—”

“I haven’t seen him since, your ladyship, I swear it. He stays out, hours and hours at a time, and comes and goes as he pleases—”

“Why shouldn’t he?” Yuuri asks. He is immediately aware of his own hypocrisy in asking this question, but he cannot help but be aware that if Betsy’s tongue is this careless in the presence of her master, it must be tenfold worse to Viktor’s face.

“Just so, my lord. Only he didn’t come for luncheon, but he didn’t yesterday, nor the day before, so Cook said think nothing of it, and I didn’t, sir, I swear, only now he’s not come back. He told John he wanted someone to carry some boxes out with him, only no one could, sir, so he just floated them.”

All the blood drains from Yuuri’s face. For a moment, he hears only the thunder of his own heart in his ears; Viktor, out in that storm, with no idea of the breadth of the grounds, no doubt hungry—it might be days before he was found, in this weather, long wet days, and if he were caught in the open by some vicious vagrants or highwaymen, who knew what might befall him?

And what on earth did Betsy mean, boxes? Unless—

“We—we must mount a search party.” Yuuri stands up so quickly he is forced to grasp his chair to keep himself from falling. He is aware of chatter behind him as he quits the room; he ignores everything as he races up the staircase and summons from his wardrobe a greatcoat and hat. He seizes the guttering crystal mounted over his bed as a lamp, and quits the house at full speed despite the protests of the servants he passes in the halls.

The rain has washed away all traces of Viktor’s passage, of course, and so Yuuri stomps through the mud across the front lawn towards the trees. In the rain, it is most likely Viktor has sought shelter there.

Despite water repelling spells on all he wears, Yuuri is soaked by the time he reaches the cover of the forest. The rain drips off the brim of his hat, forms a film over the lenses of his spectacles that he is obliged to pause to wipe away. He peers into the darkness as the clouds rumble overhead like the wrath of God.

He shudders. Then he grits his teeth, puts on his spectacles again, and plunges into the dark wood.

The longer Yuuri walks, the more aware he becomes of how difficult navigating the grounds must be for a newcomer; Yuuri himself nearly loses his way a dozen times, only kept on the path by his compass and a decade of practice. Viktor would not know the dangers, he might be anywhere, and Yuuri cannot force the picture of him lying wound in the wet grass somewhere, waiting and failing to be found.

Yuuri remembers dimly promising Viktor a tour of the rest of the grounds before the weather turned; a promise which he has not fulfilled since he made it. His stomach turns with guilt.

The rain drips insidiously down his back. Yuuri presses on, searching for some sign, hope sputtering in him in time with the light of the crystal, which is on its last legs. He grips it tightly, trying to renew it with his power, but he cannot; it is too old, and must needs be replaced.

If he too dies in these woods, because of a failing light, it will be a fitting punishment. Now he realizes how stupid he was, preparing to fight with Viktor over which lights to buy for the house, as if it will matter how well lit the manor is if Viktor dies. He can only hope that Betsy was mistaken, and Viktor did not really take the lamps with him into the woods.

Thunder cracks overhead, and Yuuri shudders. Four in ten apprentice lightning mages die.

A bright white light comes into view between the trees. Yuuri does not think, only leaves the path to chase it. It flickers, and from that direction comes a deafening sound, as if a thousand trees were being flattened, or lightning were striking very near.

He is forced to tug down his hat as he approaches, to shield his eyes from the intensity of the light. Has Viktor set up a signal to guide rescuers to him? Yuuri’s eyes start to burn from the brightness; he can make out a clearing, up ahead, and he closes his eyes and darkens the glass of his spectacles as he emerges from the shelter of the trees.

Through his squint, he sees Viktor, and his heart soars with relief—and then confusion, for what he is seeing is impossible—and then terror, for what he is seeing is dangerous.

Viktor is alive and well, standing in the center of a clearing, surrounded by the crates of lightning lamps he ordered. They are arranged about him in a spiral pattern, which ends with Viktor at the center and begins only feet from where Yuuri stands. Viktor’s hair is standing on end in all directions; the driving rain is falling at an angle bare inches from his head, sliding down in an arc that ends with it soaking the grass around the edge of the clearing.

Viktor has one hand extended, wrist up, and one lifted and bent over his head. He is wearing a foci, a long strand of glass beads wound several times around his head and then looped repeatedly around his arm, ending intertwined with his fingers. Each bead is glowing, bluish-white.

Lightning strikes Viktor’s raised palm, and instead of incinerating him, winds around his wrist. Viktor turns his arm, and the bolt of lightning spirals about it, like he and the lightning are partners in a waltz. It winds down to his other arm, dances at his fingertips, and then jumps to the nearest lamp. The orb of glass glows, Yuuri averts his eyes lest he be blinded, and when spots cease to dance before his eyes he dares to look again and sees Viktor repeat the gesture.

Yuuri closes his mouth. To disturb Viktor mid-spell would be madness—it must take layers and layers of spellcraft to manipulate the lightning without doing himself harm—the slightest distraction might prove fatal. Yuuri studied the art of lightning manipulation at Cambridge, as the culmination of his studies; it was considered to be promising yet impractical. Where, the authors of Yuuri’s texts asked, would enough mages with the power to control lightning be found?

Instead, he settles himself beneath an old oak, strips off sodden gloves, and tucks his hands into his pockets. And then Yuuri waits.

He has never seen anyone meld raw power with unspeakable grace before. Viktor has Minako’s graceful movements, and stripped down to his shirtsleeves, Yuuri can see the muscles in his arms tense under the forces of nature he is commanding.

 _He is scandalous, and he has some charm of the most superficial sort, but otherwise he is nothing out of the common way_ , his aunt said.

Yuuri is beginning to wonder if Viktor is a man at all, or if he is some collection of contradictions molded into human shape.

* * *

 

The walk back to the house is painfully silent.

Viktor levitates all the crates of lamps he has filled, and Yuuri rushes to add his own spells to assist him. Levitation, at least, Yuuri can do creditably; something always needs moving in the fields, be it unruly livestock or a fallen tree. The rain falls around them, not upon them, the whole way, and after a few yards of trekking through the mud Viktor stops and pinches at the air around Yuuri’s face.

All the water comes off of him, hangs in the air, and is flung aside into the ground with a careless movement of Viktor’s hand. He himself, though wearing shockingly threadbare clothes and without a coat or waistcoat, is dry. The earth squelches under their boots as they walk, and Yuuri finds himself torn between staring at the lamps, at the fortune in lightning made with a flick of Viktor’s fingers and at Viktor’s face, which even in the dim light and gleaming with sweat is intensely beautiful. Yuuri could swear there are sparks of lightning trapped in his eyes, but he dares not look for long.

They cross the lawn and pause before the front doors as Yuuri unlocks them and leads Viktor into the hall. They are assured by Minako, who is dressed for the rain and, like Yuuri, carrying a dying quartz crystal. She ushers them into the parlor, and calls for tea; Yuuri’s greatcoat and hat are taken by the footman.

The lightning-fueled lamps are left stacked in the front hall. Viktor sits down in a chair by the fire and settles back into it. In the light of the fire, he looks a little grey. Yuuri wants to go to him, to ask him if he is well, but he cannot make the words come when their eyes meet and Viktor turns his face pointedly towards the wall.

“What was he doing?” Minako asks after the tea is brought. She speaks as if Viktor were not in the room, listening to them, although she does make him a cup and set it on his side of the table.

“He…” Yuuri gropes for words to describe the miraculous work of magic he has just been privy to. “He was filling the lightning lamps.”

“With what?”

Yuuri nods at the ceiling. “Lightning.”

“…you are funning.”

“I can barely believe it myself,” Yuuri says. “I’ll show you, in the morning. Please excuse us.”

Minako raises a brow in Viktor’s direction, but she nods and clasps his shoulder in a motherly fashion (if with rather more force than Yuuri’s mother wold have ever employed). She leaves them alone in the parlor.

“Are you well?”

“Fine.”

Yuuri bites his lip. “You should not have gone out alone. Not for so long.”

“Yes.”

“I will call for dinner. You must eat, after such an exertion—”

“I am not hungry.”

“You did not have luncheon, or breakfast—”

“I would prefer to rest.”

“I will send a tray up to your rooms.”

“If you insist.” Viktor wipes at his brow with his handkerchief, on which what must be his initials are embroidered, in the Russian alphabet. Or so Yuuri guesses. Does Viktor speak Russian? Yuuri, despite having married Viktor, and lived with him for near a month, does not know—or has not cared to remember. Shame wells up inside his belly; Yuuri has been so concerned with himself that he has not noticed anything really important.

Clearly he has no idea what he is about. His parents would be ashamed.

“May I be excused, my lord?”

“Of course,” Yuuri says. Viktor rises, and with terrible slowness, moves towards the door. His loose hair shines orange in the firelight. “Why did you accept me?”

Viktor stumbles and catches himself on an endtable.

“You must have realized—that we would not suit.”

For a moment, Yuuri thinks that Viktor intends, rightfully, to ignore this impertinent question from his very stupid husband, but instead Viktor turns to look at him over his shoulder.

“…you had something I desired,” Viktor says tonelessly. “Or so I thought. Excuse me, my lord.”

He leaves Yuuri alone in the parlor with all his guilt and shame for company. He has always known that their marriage was one of mutual convenience, that only money could motivate Viktor sign a marriage contract, and yet—Yuuri still—

Gambling, perhaps, or too many bills from his tailor, or a penchant for frippery? Did he know the Duke had caught him at theft? Viktor could make a fortune off of lightning manipulation. Whatever the expenditure, it must have been great indeed. More than a few small thefts of jewelry could cover.

Yuuri remains there for a long time, as the fire burns down, wondering if Viktor regrets his decision half as much as Yuuri does.

**Author's Note:**

> Normally, the wife of an Earl is a Countess, with the title Lady "Earldom". Therefore, Lord Katsuki's wife would become Lady Katsuki. However, having them both be Lord Katsuki was confusing, and I didn't want to invent entirely new titles for this 'verse. Therefore, I've decided that if the spouse of a peer is the same gender as the peer, they retain their maiden name as well. Viktor's full title is Lord Nikiforov-Katsuki, but in conversation it would be abbreviated to Lord Nikiforov.
> 
> *jazz hands* comments please


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